Independent Contractor Network Engineer Jobs in Arizona

Iridium is an award-winning satellite communications company operating the world's only truly global voice and data network, delivering reliable connectivity anywhere on Earth. For more than 20 years, Iridium has powered mission-critical communications for governments, businesses, aviation, maritime, and the rapidly expanding Internet of Things.

Now part of Iridium, Aireon is the world’s only space-based air traffic surveillance system, providing real-time visibility of aircraft over oceans, the poles, and remote regions. Together, Iridium and Aireon are helping build a safer, more connected, and more efficient future for global aviation.

Join our team and help shape how the world stays connected. We foster a collaborative, inclusive culture where employees are empowered to innovate, grow professionally, and make a meaningful impact.

If you are passionate about deploying disruptive technology, then you will be excited about the Senior Network Engineer opening with Iridium. As Senior Network Engineer, you will play a key role in development, integration, troubleshooting, and testing of the Iridium Mission, Commercial, and Enterprise networks’ infrastructure. You will be responsible for designing, installing, troubleshooting, and maintaining the Iridium ground network infrastructure and equipment to deliver a fault-tolerant, reliable, scalable, and automated infrastructure. In this role, you will determine methods and procedures and independently coordinate activities of other personnel, lead the implementation of ideas and solutions that improve Iridium’s network availability, performance, security, and reliability.

• Use your knowledge of Iridium business and technologies, and collaborate with internal and external teams, to support operations and engineering tasks and projects and to provide improvement recommendations to the management team
• Independently perform installation, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting of networking devices including, but not limited to, Cisco devices such as ISR/ASR Routers, Catalyst and Nexus switches, firewalls (to include Fortinet and Palo Alto firewalls), and AWS Cloud services
• Play a key role in providing technical assistance to Support-team related to network traffic congestion, latency issues, link outages, and System performance problems
• Deliver Maintenance and Operations of Mission Critical Network Infrastructure systems to support Local Area Networks and Wide Area Networks across multiple sites
• Work independently to perform installation, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting of networking and security hardware, and operating systems and review work of junior team members
• Maintain documentation, audit logs, and adhere to Configuration Management rules required to meet compliance
• Conduct research on network products, services, protocols, and standards to remain abreast of developments in the DevOps and network industries, technologies, and best practices and transform research to support direction and decision making
• Provide real time troubleshooting and problem resolution for escalated issues as required

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or similar field
• 8+ years of experience managing and maintaining mid-to-large scale LAN/WAN networks devices that include Cisco Routers, Switches, Firewall and other vendors networking technologies
• Strong knowledge and understanding, and multi-year hands-on experience, of IP routing protocols such as MPLS, OSPF, EIGRP, and BGP
• Strong knowledge and understanding, and multi-year hands-on experience, of IP communication protocols such as OSI Model, Spanning-Tree, VDC, VFR, VPC, and VSS
• Excellent network troubleshooting and problem-solving skills in a high-pressure environment. Work on issues requiring an in-depth knowledge of the network and relates variable factors and autonomously make decisions or create solutions to address problems
• Have confidence and be able to build relationships with leadership and colleagues outside of our team. Can clearly summarize information and confidently present to them solutions and ideas they may be unfamiliar with
• Capable of managing and prioritizing own tasks and possibly the tasks of others while adhering to deadlines, policies and procedures
• Possess an analytical mindset, with the ability to understand a situation or problem and think critically to make decisions and come up with out-of-the-box solutions

• Experience configuring and managing AWS cloud features, solutions, and services such as VPC, DirectConnect Gateway, Transit Gateway, and AWS partners virtual appliances such as routers and firewalls.
• Experience with configuration management, application deployment, provisioning, and orchestration tools such as Ansible
• Comfortable working in a Linux environment, RHEL preferred, and virtualized environment
• Well versed in use of MS Office Suite and Visio
• Network Certifications like CCNP or CompTIA Network+

• Be available to support 24x7 on-call on an as-needed basis.
• Be able to travel occasionally, typically 3 to 4 times per year
• Be a US Citizen
• Be able to lift 25 lbs. and climb a ladder
• Must be able to work a hybrid schedule that includes a minimum of 60% of your time (3 days per week) in-office
• Provide dual citizenship information, and screened by HR for approval

This position primarily works in an office setting and is largely sedentary with the majority of the position working with a computer. The role typically requires the use of basic office equipment such as a phone, video, computer, keyboard, mouse, and printer. 

We believe in-person connection drives innovation, strengthens mentorship, and builds culture, while flexibility enables employees to do their best work. Under Iridium’s Hybrid Work Policy, employees are expected to work at least four days per week (approximately 80%) in an Iridium office to support collaboration, relationship-building, and professional growth.

Additional Information

This job description outlines the general nature and level of work for this role and is not a comprehensive list of duties, responsibilities, or qualifications. Employees may be assigned additional responsibilities as needed.

Base Pay Range: $117,000 - $151,000 USD

Actual compensation will be determined based on a variety of factors and this range represents an estimate of compensation at the time of posting. Base salary is only one part of our compensation package for this role. You may also be eligible for company stock and annual bonus. Employee benefits also include medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage; 401(k) retirement plan options; paid time off and paid holidays; paid parental leave; and other discounts and perks.  

Iridium is an Equal Opportunity Employer, including individuals with disabilities and protected veterans.